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Monthly Archives: November 2011

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It’s 2011, right? Almost 2012. Perhaps it has to do with marketing plans – hard to promote an album on both sides of the ocean when there is only one band that can tour. And if plans for a tour on the other side of the world aren’t on the books for another 4 months, you don’t want to lose momentum by releasing an album too early.

Snow Patrol’s sixth full length, Fallen Empires, will be released in the UK on November 14. For some reason, it’s not going to be released in the US until January 10. In a time when labels are fighting a daily battle on illegal downloads, does it make a lot of sense to stagger release dates? And the major labels wonder why they lose sales every day.

Life imitating art? Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova starred in the movie Once and while that was a fictitious tale of an older street busker and a younger musician, it was an intimate look into a real life love affair. Hansard and Irglova were then thrust into the public spotlight – maybe not as much as Hollywood couples – but even my mom knew who the couple was and followed their fairytale story.

Apparently a documentary was filmed as the two – calling themselves The Swell Season and performing with Hansard’s band The Frames – toured the world, playing in front of packed houses to people who had no idea that the singer had been struggling to make it for nearly two decades.

Not having seen anything other than the trailer, I can only guess as to the storyline but I have to believe the film showcases the meteoric rise of the couple (and their music) and the strain it put on their relationship which eventually ended even as the two continued to make music together.

Following up the last post about Cardinal, Kevin Tihista’s definitely an artist in the same genre – orchestral pop music that music geeks freak out over. Tihista got his start as the bass player in Capitol Records band Triple Fast Action. After that band broke up, Tihista lent his talents to Veruca Salt (post-Nina Gordon) though he didn’t last long before embarking (much to my surprise … didn’t know he had it in him) on a solo career that spawned 5 full length recordings between 2001 and 2005.

For somebody so prolific, the lack of new material since 2005 has been somewhat surprising. A few years ago Tihista sent me some demos, saying that he had albums worth of stuff written and ready to record but then he killed off his Facebook account and I haven’t heard from him since.

Broken Horse Records out of the UK recently announced that Tihista’s latest, sure-to-be, opus, On This Dark Street, has been completed and is being mastered with the goal of releasing the album in early 2012. The label posted “Bats” from the new CD on Halloween (ah, how fitting!).

How did we get by before the internet? Cardinal’s always been one of those mythical bands to me – I’ve read about them, heard bands influenced by them, but I can’t recall ever seeing one of their CDs in a record store. It wasn’t until Spotify emerged that I finally got to check out this duo (look up Cardinal’s re-issued 1994 self-titled debut with eleven bonus tracks!) and hear their sweet pop songs.

Richard Davies and Eric Matthews earned comparisons to the Beatles and Bee Gees when they were creating music in the mid-90s, a time in which that music wasn’t exactly en vogue. But after just one release, the duo split, each member moving on to other recording projects.

In early 2012, Davies and Matthews will release their long-overdue sophomore release, Hymns, and the hipster kids (and music supervisors on quirky coming-of-age flicks) sound go apeshit over this retro orchestral-pop sound. Here’s a little taste of what to expect.

Luna may have broken up in 2005 but their last three releases (2002’s Romantica, 2002’s Close Cover Before Striking (EP), 2005’s Rendezvous) have just been issued digitally on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Rhapsody and Bandcamp and all come with bonus tracks.

Here’s the previously unreleased (I think) cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Dancing Days” which can be found on Close Cover Before Striking.